Saint (14 page)

He had formed his tunnel within seconds of entering the tank. He knew that he had a limited amount of time, but time ceased in here, so he didn't think of himself as in a race against the clock.

He was here to protect the tunnel. A terrible force would come to destroy it, he knew. An enemy far greater than any he'd ever faced.

He would have to do something new. He couldn't rely on the wall to protect him.

This time he would have to go outside the wall in a new tunnel, as he had recently, but with far more focus. His one advantage was that he knew how the attack would come. The force would come through his hands and skull.

If he could lower the heat in a room; if the pH balance of water could be altered so easily; if the faithful could walk into the fiery furnace and not be burned by flames or walk on water without drowning, then his mission wasn't impossible.

It had been done before.

Carl swam outside the tunnel, sending wave after wave of the sea to his extremities, to the place where the enemy would attack. It was all in his mind, of course, but the mind was his greatest weapon.

He remembered being led down the underground tunnel and being strapped into the chair, but these were noises and sensations of another world.

Then voices. Urgent. Arguing, perhaps. Excited, perhaps.

He smiled. Did they know that he was outside the tunnel? Agotha would be proud!

The voices ceased, and he knew that the attack was going to come. And then it did, in a red-hot wave that took his breath away and flooded his eyes with blinding light.

“TEN, ELEVEN . . .” Agotha stared at the jerking body through the picture window. There was no way he could possibly survive!

Inside Kalman continued his count. “Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.” He nodded at the operator inside. “As agreed.”

A loud clank signaled the break. The hall lights brightened, then one sputtered and winked out. Kalman stood beside the chair, wearing a look of fascination. At times like these Agotha hated him.

She pulled the door open and stopped short. The smell of burned hair was strong. He was surely dead. If not physically, then mentally. A vegetable. They'd found no record of a man surviving fifteen seconds at this voltage, the only reason Kalman had agreed to the terms. “Carl?”

He was slumped against his straps, headpiece firmly in place.

“He's dead,” Kalman said on her left.

The hall door crashed open, and Kelly pulled up by the large window. She rushed into the room and brushed past Agotha, not caring that her face was still wet with tears.

“Carl? Carl, please tell me you can hear me.” She frantically un-buckled the leather mask and flung it from his head. She ripped the blindfold off his face. Then she went to work on the attachments on his arms and legs, practically tearing them free.

Agotha blinked. Carl's cheeks and lips were dry, not wet from tears or saliva.
Surely his eyes would be gone,
she thought.
Surely his—
His left hand twitched. Residual current.

“Carl?” Kelly's voice was filled with desperation. She had deeper feelings for the man than even Agotha had guessed.

“He's not breathing!” Kelly cried. She dropped her head against his chest and listened for a heartbeat. But if he wasn't breathing now, a full minute since they'd turned off the electricity, he was dead.

As if in response to her thought, Carl's left hand lifted an inch from the armrest. Stopped. Then it twisted, and his forearm slowly rose.

Agotha was no longer breathing. Carl, on the other hand, had to be! Kelly had seen none of it, not yet.

Carl's hand rose slowly and touched the back of Kelly's head. Her whole body froze.

Carl smiled. “Hello, Kelly.”

His eyes snapped open.

Kelly began to cry.

Behind Agotha, Kalman grunted.

“I OWE you my life,” Kelly said.

“And I owe you mine.” It was true. Without his love for her, Carl didn't think he'd have survived the last ten months, assuming that was truly how long he'd been in training.

They sat at a round table for four in his bunker kitchen, eating nuts and jerky.

“You know what this means, don't you?” she asked.

Carl put a peanut in his mouth and bit into it around a big grin. Honestly, he couldn't remember feeling this happy, so he let the feeling ride. “That I'll go into the field.”

“Yes. Agotha is thrilled. If you were her pet project before, you're her golden calf now.”

“And Kalman?”

She shrugged. “Kalman is Kalman. He lives for killing.”

“Like a good father,” Carl said. “Sets the rules and makes sure they're kept.”

She gave him a strange look. Picked up a piece of jerky and tore off a strip. “You're not angry at him?”

“That would be impractical. He's only doing what he thinks is best. Can any of us argue with the results?”

She nodded. “What else can you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you can protect your body against the currents of an electric chair, shouldn't you be able to do more?”

“Anyone can ignore heat. I just do it better than most. That doesn't mean I can fly.”

She laughed at that, and he joined her. The pleasure in her blue eyes, the soft curve of her neck, the shine in her wavy hair—he found her stunning. And he'd saved her, hadn't he? He had saved the one he loved.

“I have your mission, Carl,” she said, flashing a mischievous grin.

“You do?”

“I do.” But she didn't offer it.

“When?”

“In five days.”

“Where?”

“New York City. They say it's a wonderful place. I can hardly wait.”

“Who is it?”

“An Iranian leader named Assim Feroz.”

Carl slapped the table with his palm. “Finally,” he said and snatched up his glass for a toast. “To Assim Feroz. May he accept the bullet I send him with grace.” Even as he said it, he wondered if such eagerness was appropriate. Was he really so excited to kill?

Kelly lifted her glass and clinked it against his. “To Assim Feroz.”

14

T
he United Nations Middle Eastern summit attracted a large number of protesters, as expected, but the media kept most of their coverage focused on the conflict brewing inside the UN rather than on the street.
Viewers can look only so long on a nineteen-year-old woman
with stringy hair waving a banner that reads “Stenton Kills Babies,”
David Abraham thought, flipping through channels.

In his way of thinking, such slander should have to defend itself with logic. Even minimal logic. No panel of jurors in the country would convict Robert Stenton of killing fleas, much less babies. And yet too frequently, highly educated journalists reported such accusations as serious charges worthy of attention.

He should have gone to New York, even though he could not stop whatever might happen. Now all he could do was pray that God would save those who needed saving and let the rest find their own way.

He sat on the couch in his Connecticut home and switched to FOX News. The president was holding a press conference. David turned the volume up.

President Stenton was saying, “. . . that I strongly objected to forcing Israel into a corner where her national defense rests in the hands of a foreign government, which is what the United Nations would be doing in this situation. As I see it, the Feroz initiative threatens Israel's sovereignty.”

Steven Ace of NBC asked, “Sir, the United States is now the only country that opposes the plan. Does that fact pose any problem for you?”

Stenton replied, “Uniting world opinion always poses problems. Clearly we have a ways to go. But when it comes to standing up for an ally that's facing potential extermination, I think those problems are worth grappling with, don't you?”

“I have a follow-up, if that's okay,” Ace said.

“Go ahead, Steve,” Stenton replied.

“I understand that there's growing support in Congress for the initiative. Are there any plans for a congressional vote on the matter?”

“No,” Stenton said, excusing himself with a nod. “Thank you, that will be all.” With that, the most powerful man in the world stepped away from the flashing lights and walked through a blue curtain behind the podium.

David grinned.
That's it, Robert. No mincing words
.

Then again, they both knew that the president was indeed being strong-armed to reconsider by members from both sides of the aisle. Robert had told David two days earlier that the price he was paying for his immovability was turning out to be much higher than he'd expected. There was talk on Capitol Hill of shelving his domestic agenda altogether.

World opinion boiled down to what each government thought of the United Nation's charter. In this new role suggested by Feroz, the United Nations would become the strongest government in the Middle East. Why the leaders of Europe and Asia didn't feel threatened by this was beyond David.

Unless, of course, they saw Israel as their enemy as well.

David sighed and switched to another news channel. Protester coverage.

Another channel. Commentary on the president's brief conference.

Another channel. ABC was interviewing none other than Assim Feroz outside the Waldorf-Astoria, where the UN was hosting several major social events for the dignitaries.

David sat back, crossed his legs, and pressed the DVR record button. The Iranian was tall and gaunt with eyelids that hung lower than most. Fair skin and dark hair, clearly of Persian descent. That the Iranian minister of defense had worked his way into the spotlight with this transparent initiative disgusted David.

Feroz was answering the questions with a polite smile.

“Naturally, it's unacceptable. But we believe that the United States will soon see the wisdom of stopping the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East through this peace initiative. You cannot turn your back on suffering for too long.”

“What will you do if the United States vetoes the initiative at the summit?” the ABC anchor asked.

A crowd of security personnel and reporters was gathered around the defense minister. A limousine door gaped open behind him, apparently waiting on him.

“We will not rest until we have peace. How can one man stand against so many?” Feroz answered. “Now the whole world will unite and bring peace where there has been no peace for centuries.”

“Thank you, Mr. Feroz.”

“Thank you,” he replied.

David saw the reporter, Mary Sanders, for the first time as the camera faced her. “There you have it . . .”

David muted the television. Another journalist in a black sports coat faced the camera, then abruptly turned his back and walked away. The man was familiar to David, but then, so were the faces of a hundred reporters.

Stenton had a fight on his hands. The summit was clearly doing him no favors. David had expected nothing else.

But there was something out of place about that reporter in the sports coat. Strange how the memory worked. Déjà vu?

David started to change the channel. Instead, he pressed the rewind button on the DVR. The reporter's face came and went.

Forward, slow motion this time. David paused the picture as the man turned. He stared for five full seconds before recognition struck.

“No . . .”

It was him!

David stood, studied the profile on the screen. Could he be mistaken? His heart was pounding at twice its normal pace.

He was at the interview with Assim Feroz. There, in New York!

Still gripping the remote control in his left hand, David ran around the couch and snatched up the phone. He dropped the remote on the desk. Dialed the president's number with a shaky finger.

“Dear Lord, help us . . .”

“Brian Macteary.”

“Brian—Brian, it's David. I must speak to the president.”

“David? David Abraham?”

“Yes. Please tell him it's important.”

“I'm sorry, he's unavailable. Is there something I can help you with?” “No, I have to speak with him. It's very important.”

“I'm under strict orders not to interrupt them. He's just gone into a short meeting with the British prime minister. I can pass him a message when he comes out. Shouldn't be more than fifteen minutes.”

David quickly considered his options and settled on the only course that presented itself with any clarity.

“It's very important that you tell him something in the strictest of confidence. Tell him that I have reason to believe that there will be an attempt made on the life of Assim Feroz. The security is tight, I'm sure.”

“I've never seen more security.” Brian paused. “You're saying that someone may be trying to kill the Iranian defense minister?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing more? How—”

“Never mind how I know—tell him! I'm taking the first flight I can into New York. Tell him that.”

“I should pass this through the Secret Service.”

“No! Please, just tell the president and let him decide how to proceed.”

“I'm obligated—”

“No, Brian. This isn't a formal threat. Just the president. Promise me!”

The president's press secretary was hesitant. “I'll tell him,” he finally said.

15

C
arl had never been as happy as he was now, walking the streets of New York with Kelly.

He'd been in many exercises that felt like true assignments at the time, but walking down Park Avenue toward the Waldorf-Astoria with such a show of security as far as the eye could see swept away any lingering suspicions, however small, that this, too, was simply an exercise.

He really was here to kill Assim Feroz. And that was good. Better than he'd dreamed. He told himself so on many occasions.

Kelly had taken care of a number of details that facilitated his mission, but in the end, it would be his finger on the trigger, sending the bullet on a trajectory determined solely by him. It would make them both proud. And he wanted to be proud, he'd decided. This was now an emotion that he embraced whenever it presented itself.